So I\’m kinda surprised to see so many people so bothered by proposed changes to the WSOP main event. I know folks like TBR are a little concerned that a new schedule would require him to take more time away from making babies/the law donuts, but I gotta say … bitch all you want, as imperfect as it may be in v 1.0, this delayed final table concept is great — nay, brilliant! — and here\’s why:
Better Sponsor Deals for Players
In three months a player has time to get their business affairs in order and sell their bodies if they wish. Currently, the only deals offered up are by online-poker-site thugs hovering around the final few tables with bags of cash and swag. And while some more experienced players might recognize the off-table opportunities that go along with guaranteed television exposure while it is all taking shape, do you really want to be making business decisions while in the middle of a big tourney?
Say someone like TBR were to make the final table … he has ins with Whataburger, but there\’s simply no way he\’d be able to hook anything up with a non-poker company in two days. With the extra time, however, he might be able to convince them (in theory at least) that doughy poker players are the perfect people to market the 24-hr drive-thru to. Boom: Whataburger hat, extra cash. If Lacey Jones were to make it, her peeps would have plenty of time to work something up with Revlon, for example. These sorts of deals simply aren\’t possible in the current set-up.
Better Sponsor Deals for the WSOP
Likewise, the delay would afford Harrah\’s (and ESPN) extra time to custom-tailor a sales pitch around the extra-hyped event that will be going down. Even if Lacey Jones wanted nothing to do with anything chick-ish, that wouldn\’t stop Harrah\’s from going to companies who previously might not have given poker a second thought and saying, hey, we got this sweet Texas hottie looking to become the Hillary Clinton of poker … you may wanna get in on this. OK, bad comparison, but I think you get the picture. Bottom line is the bottom line — and the better Harrah\’s can do at securing these sorts of deals, the closer we are to having true overlays in big-time poker events. And even without that, in general, non-poker money coming into the poker world is a good thing for us all.
Free Editorial Promotion
Let\’s stick with Lacey Jones as a final tableist … she just won a million bucks and will be competing against some tough dudes for $7-$12 million (my numbers, not the WSOP\’s). Boom: She\’s on The View in a heartbeat … and Harrah\’s is getting great brand promotion at a time that will inevitable coincide with a Circuit event somewhere. Ladies in Nebraska flock to Council Bluffs to buy into a $200 event trying to be the next Lacey Jones. This applies to non-blonde-female players as well. A fisherman from Louisiana gets on The Fishing Channel … a young internet kid from Colorado gets in Snowboarder magazine …
Election-Year Bump
Let\’s face it, poker is escapism. The poker boom coincided with the early days of the Iraq war, and after getting our fix of shock and awe, people flipping channels found themselves captivated by this intriguing show called the World Poker Tour, and then this guy named Chris Moneymaker on ESPN … wow, so much confusion in the world right now and here people are playing this easy-to-learn game where everyday folks are kinda-sorta in charge of their own fates. Politics, violence, recession, and illicit gay rendezvouses will be super-big in October, and poker stands to benefit from TV viewers wanting to get away from it all.
Better Stadium Seating/Parties
As things are now, after nearly seven weeks of intense WSOPage, the Amazon Room is transformed into a TV stadium literally overnight, and anyone who has trudged through the experience of seeing the final table live can tell you: it was the best time they\’ll never want to have again. But this way, Harrah\’s is no longer limited to the Amazon, and in general has more room to create a better live experience — probably something akin to boxing, as the action space is about the same. The parties around this live event will be better, too, as players not at the final table will have had some time to recover from the WSOP burn and can be more excited about the end results of the WSOP than getting home.
Professional Wrestling-like Entrances
OK, this could actually be a bad thing and there are lots of intangibles in play. But if I learned anything from seeing the NBC Heads-Up Championship, it was the clear difference between a poker tournament that happens to have TV cameras there and a television production that happens to be about poker. This pause would even more clearly distinguish the two … so the WSOP as a whole could be the festival of poker tournaments it is, and the main event final table can be the made-for-TV special it has the potential to be.
Absolutely, if this sked change goes through it will forever change the WSOP … but so what? A bunch of players in the main event got there by finishing in the top XX of a super-satellite tourney that finished before it finished. So now, basically the $10k NLH Championship will be a Super-mega satellite that plays down to nine, who all get $1 million and an invitation to come back for a special televised single-table sit-n-go to compete for upwards of $10 million … and the caveat is you get to start with the same number of chips you finished the SMS-STSNG qualifier with. Fun!
Anyone who doesn\’t want to compete in that sorta event, of course, doesn\’t have to — and I suspect (but don\’t know for sure) that Harrah\’s would give refunds to anyone who has already bought in and no longer wants to play.
I also will bet that if there is a three-month delay in 2008, the 2009 WSOP will be the biggest ever.
